wDec 9, 2007


Lovely Complex

Lovely Complex is a 24-episode series focusing on high school students. The series focuses on Risa Koizumi, Atsushi Otani, and their group of friends. Risa (the girl) is 172cm tall, while Otani (the boy) is 156cm tall. Risa soon discovers that she likes Otani more than a friend, but before anything can happen, she needs to overcome her own insecurities about their height difference, and Otani's complete obliviousness. This is one of the few shows, in the media of both anime and TV shows, where the protagonist's chemistry with one another is truly shown in a way that the audience can understand. Risa and Otani are constantly laughing, arguing, and teasing one another - and they know each other better than anyone else. While Risa and Otani can be a bit hyper, their friends are more "normal."

At its best (which luckily is quite frequent), the series is both hilarious and poignant. It uses the quick wit of the characters and exaggerated facial expressions to capture humor, but it also does an excellent job of portraying poignant situations, and the impact of high school drama on the lives teenagers still in high school, trying to figure things out.

At its worst, though, the series can fumble. It's really clear when the series gets over-budget, because the animation quality can a huge nose-dive in some episodes. This is unfortunate, because when their game is on, the characters can look quite nice. I also was not a huge fan of the series' soundtrack, aside from the opening and closing songs. The inside-tracks often reminded me of elevator music, or were simply overly-dramatic. Also, in the latter episodes especially, I feel like not enough time was spent developing newly introduced characters.

I feel that this series could have been much, much stronger if it had only been 12-14 episodes long, instead of 24, by just extracting all of the awesome from the mediocre and less-than-mediocre. That said, I still enjoyed it a lot.

The first opening:



The second opening (I love this one!):



The manga version of the story (which came first) is available in the US right now, although I believe under its shortened name: Lov*Com. I intend to check it out, just to see how the art style is, etc.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 7:36 PM
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wMay 5, 2007


woe.

I've wanted to write in here lately, but then I never do. It's kind of expected that the end of the semester brings with it an onslaught of stress and the need to curl into the fetal position. Other things have been making me sad too, though.

It has been confirmed by my Political Science adviser that I can't receive credit for another political internship - they all count as the same class number, which I already received credit for last summer. I hadn't realized how confident I had been in my summer plans until I received this information, and took it heavily.

I think my main problem is that I simply have no energy. It's already 1pm, and I still have yet to shower, yet to eat anything beyond crackers. I had wanted to wash some laundry, go to Westfield Comics, and also pick up some cookies for Anime Club.

I've had time to sample about as many new anime series as I wanted to, but I won't have time to make it beyond the first episode in any until after finals are over. Maybe I'll write more detailed stuff later on, but for now I'll say that I highly, highly recommend "Lovely Complex" and "Seirei no Moribito" (Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, in Japanese). And the second season of Victorian Romance Emma goes without saying, of course. And all of the other stuff I've already recommended. "Sisters of Wellber" I'm still not sure about, but am not entirely willing to give up on yet. "Lucky Star" was not really very funny at all, except for the opening sequence. Successor to Azumanga Daioh, my ass.

I guess that to accomplish any of these things, I should step away from the computer.

Current Music: Rinbu (Revolution) - Revolutionary Girl Utena opening

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scribbled mystickeeper at 12:56 PM
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